


Lone Wolf

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, Werewolf AU, implied ot5, rated M mostly for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 14:57:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21496144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: In a werewolf AU, Noct and co. discover a strange, lone werewolf hiding in the woods, unable to shift back. After bribing him with copious amounts of jerky, they bathe him, feed him, and try to coddle him into remembering how to turn into a human again.For Ardyn Izunia, trapped in his wolf form with his mortal enemy calling him a “good boy” and giving him head pats, he may as well be in hell.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 11
Kudos: 252





	Lone Wolf

Full moons, in Ignis’ opinion, are never ideal.

It isn’t the loss of a quiet evening in. Anyone familiar with Ignis’ usual haunts in Insomnia’s club district knows he isn’t one to balk at _that. _It isn’t even the dizzying loss of control as the beast takes the reins, all instinct and wild exuberance.

No. 

It’s the ticks.

“I’ll do it this time,” Ignis says, picking through his bedraggled hair with a pair of tweezers. “I’m going to set my hair on fire, then these little devils won’t have anywhere left to hide.”

“You’re literally four months away from a pompadour,” Gladio says, from where he’s sprawled on the RV camp bed. 

Ignis falls silent.

“Anyways, you were the one who ran headfirst into the ferns last night,” Gladio says, his tone ever so helpful. His foot jiggles on the back of a folding chair, and he smiles up at his phone.

“Yes,” Ignis says. “I suppose.”

“And don’t forget the time you thought that tree was challenging you and we had to drag you down by the tail—“

“Baby chocobo,” Ignis snaps, spinning on his heel. Gladio goes ashen and glances away. “I seem to recall you, how would I say it... went a tad _protective, _and adopted a particularly fluffy new wolf cub—“

“Look, it was the moon,” Gladio says.

“Yes,” Ignis drawls. “The moon.”

Ignis returns to his hair, cursing softly, while Gladio pretends to have found a riveting article on his phone. Yesterday’s shredded clothing lies in a heap to be mended, Prompto is out getting groceries, and for once, all is quiet.

Then, just as Ignis dips his fingers in the hair gel, Noctis bursts through the door.

He’s still a wolf—He usually stays shifted for a good day after the full moon, dozing in a patch of sun—but his sleek black fur is bristled, and his tail is bottlebrush thick and raised in alarm. He barks.

“What’s up?” Gladio asks, without looking away from his phone. “Timmy stuck down a well?”

Noct’s eyes narrow.

“We may need your words, Noct,” Ignis says.

Noct’s upper lip curls, and he hunches in on himself as he shifts, entirely unbothered by his friends trying to avoid what should be a private moment. He straightens and lurches for his bag.

“Fine,” he grumbles. “Now I need boxers.” He shoves on his clothes as though they’ve personally insulted him, and turns his glare on Gladio. “No Timmys in a well, asshole, but there is a wolf in the woods. A big one. Think he’s too scared to shift back.”

“Injured?” Gladio asks. His mocking smile is gone. “Or feral?”

“I think he’s hurt,” Noct says, throwing on a shirt. “Come on.”

Ignis sighs. Technically, this isn’t their concern. They could just alert the authorities and let professionals take over. They needn’t drop their post-moon plans for a strange wolf.

But this is Noct. So they will.

They beat a path across the oil-slick asphalt and over the railing towards the woods. The outskirts of the small outpost gives way to burned-out buildings long reclaimed by nature, vines clasping at crumbling brick and blanketing the floor. Green tongues of moss loll from open windows, and bees drift over exposed rubble. Ignis can’t help but feel like an intruder, a city boy too far from home. 

Noct walks through it all like he was born here, like he didn’t grow up racing down marble hallways and sitting for official portraits. A bird flits by his head, screeching in alarm, but he doesn’t even flinch.

In moments like this, Ignis wonders if the rumors of the Caelums are true. If they are, as legend claims, descendants of the first wolves. Then Noct sees Prompto sitting cross-legged in the trees, tries to jog the rest of the way, and nearly stumbles over a rock and right into a clump of wild onions.

The spell breaks.

“Nice,” Prompto says. Noct makes a rude gesture and runs a hand through his messy hair. “He’s still back there. Tried to bite me, so I tossed him the jerky and ran for it.”

Gladio’s face falls. “Not... _all _the jerky?” he asks, as though they don’t have chicken marinating in the RV.

Prompto cranes around the tree at his back. “Pretty sure he’s eating the bag, too.”

Gladio deigns to look like a kicked puppy.

“By our sacrifice does virtue flourish—“ Ignis starts, in his best attempt at a tutor’s disinterested drawl, but Gladio stops him by holding his face in both hands. Ignis sputters a laugh, and Gladio flushes and steps back.

“Guys. Focus,” Noct says.

All they have to do from there is follow the sound of crinkling plastic. The wolf is a monster, massive and white with patches of light reddish fur, and if he’s trying to hide, he’s doing a piss-poor job of it. His back legs keep sliding out from the wispy bush he’s hunkered behind, and half the leaves keep rattling to the ground. He stops midway through crunching the bag of jerky and growls softly.

“Oh, hell,” Gladio says. “That was the good shit.”

The wolf’s growl fluctuates as Noct eases closer, and drool slides over the metallic plastic of the jerky bag.

“Hey,” Noct says. “Hey, buddy.”

The growl lowers dangerously.

“You want some more jerky?”

The wolf considers this. He nods, faintly, just enough for Ignis to agree that yes, Noct is right, that this is indeed some poor soul locked so deep in their wolf form that they can’t seem to find themselves again.

“I guess that’s a yes,” Prompto says, as the last of Noct’s secret stash of deer jerky drops from the armiger. The wolf snarfs up the jerky with a ferocity that puts even Ignis’ late night rabbit hunting to shame, and somehow manages to growl at Noct through a mouthful of deer.

“Good boy,” Noct says. It’s usually an unspoken taboo among werewolves—no one wants to think too closely about the tenuous line between humanity, the beast, and the cheerful tail-wagging loyalty of a dog—but the wolf quiets a little at his voice.

Slowly, Noct raises a hand.

———

This may, in fact, be the worst day of Ardyn Lucis Caelum’s ongoing disaster of an immortal life.

Full moons used to mean something, back in the day. They were there for the hunt, the hills of Lucis bright with moonlight and trembling with the howl of Ardyn’s wild hunt, the shriek of daemons in the trees. Ardyn had raced through hammocks that would one day become royal forests, kick up spray in creeks that would divide nations, rend the daemons beneath his paw with a hunger that grew, and grew, wilder and fiercer and beautiful as the soft give of flesh in his jaws—

And here he is, miserably chewing at a lump of subpar jerky while his mortal enemy washes his fur.

It’s been harder to shift back, lately. The call of the hunt is too strong, and the daemons that share Ardyn’s skin pull him deeper still, muffling his thoughts. It makes it hard to object when Noctis, king of light and man who truly can’t leave well enough alone, guides Ardyn to a nearby RV and runs the bath. Ardyn lies there, sighing as though his heart may break, while Noct gently massages herbal shampoo into his fur. 

It’s nice shampoo, at least.

“Alright, big guy,” Noct says, when Ardyn snaps at the towel in his hands. “You towel dry or blow dry, one or the other. We’re not wolves. We’re gonna do this the human way.”

“Oh, fuck yourself,” Ardyn says, but it comes out as a snarl. Noct gets the message, but he calls over Gladio, who shifts into a truly enormous brown wolf and drapes himself over Ardyn’s middle, trapping him in place.

“You conniving little shit,” Ardyn says, as Noct turns on the blow drier. Gladio’s fur ruffles dramatically, and he tosses his impressive ruff and winks down at Ardyn.

Ardyn grumbles darkly. He could kill them all in a moment; heave Gladio off his back like the impertinent pup he is, streak the RV with their still pulsing blood—

“Chicken’s in the oven,” Prompto says. Ardyn’s ears perk despite himself, and Noct smiles as he pulls out a brush. The scent of roasting chicken fills the RV, fat popping in a puddle of oil, oregano wafting in the heat of the oven.

Damn them, Ardyn thinks, exposing his neck so Noct can brush his chest, where tangles are already forming. He closes his eyes to the touch of calloused fingers teasing them loose, and his tail thumps with a treacherous wag. Damn them all.

———

The wolf finally shifts back around midnight.

Noct is the first to spot it. There’s a movement in the corner, where their new friend has curled up with a throw blanket, a stuffed chocobo shoved under his chin as a pillow. Noct hadn’t been sure about that, but the guy tries to savage anyone who attempts to take the chocobo away, so he’s not about to risk it.

The wolf sighs, and Noct extricates himself from the tangle of bodies on the camp bed. Gladio and Prompto are wolfed-out, two furry heaters keeping the chill of the night at bay, but the lone wolf shivers as Noct slips out of bed. He opens a golden eye, stares at Noct, bares sharp teeth in the dark.

“Okay,” Noct whispers. “That’s nice.”

The wolf ducks his head and hunches a little. There’s a pause, like he’s bracing himself, and Noct slinks closer. He slowly touches the wolf’s shoulders, dodging just in time to miss the snap of powerful jaws, and whispers low.

“It’s alright,” he says. “I’m with you, man.”

The wolf closes his eyes and hunches further in. His fur bristles. Noct feels muscle shift under him and tries to pull back—touching a werewolf while they shift is too intimate, something even married couples are loath to attempt—but the wolf whines piteously, and Noct doesn’t draw away. He feels nerves slither under his fingers like tiny snakes, making space for a new form. Bones shift and crack. Muscles bulge, soften, disappear. The wolf’s heavy breathing takes a strange note, and by the time Noct forces himself to look anywhere but his hands, he stares into the eyes of a very familiar, very naked older man with dark red hair and golden eyes.

“Oh,” Noct says, as Ardyn Izunia, chancellor of Niflheim, pants in his arms. “It’s you.”

“Yes,” Ardyn says. His throat is too hoarse for a proper drawl, but he tries anyways. His voice cracks, and Noct sees something strange flicker in his eyes, something that makes his own blood thrill with the rush of an impending full moon. “What luck.”


End file.
